Dear RCHS Friends,

Following the CDC, Minnesota Governor, and Faribault City Council’s lead regarding Social Distancing and the recommendations for staying healthy in the Covid-19 Pandemic, the Rice County Historical Society Museum will be closed from Wed., March 18 to at least through March 31, 2020. The Genealogy Classes will be postponed (a date to be announced later.) We will review and revise that closing date as needed based on health care professionals recommendations.

The health of our volunteers, members, and staff is of the utmost importance to us and we appreciate your patience, flexibility, and understanding as we navigate this rapidly changing situation.

We will continue to monitor emails and our Facebook page and are eager to help with any research questions you might have.

In the meantime, we’d like your help.

We are in unfamiliar territory for most of us. Some of you might remember the Polio scare in the 1950s and many have heard of the Spanish Flu epidemic in 1918-1920. Yet, there is very little in our archives about the personal experience of those epidemics within Rice County. People don’t often think about preserving “now” for future use, but that is exactly what we’re trying to do.

We are actively collecting how local governmental officials, schools, and organizations are responding to the Covid-19/Coronavirus Pandemic. We’d like your help to record the personal experience as well.

Do you have photos of bare shelves at any Rice County stores? Consider donating them to the Historical Society. If you take photos of your family studying at home or take photos of any experience that is Covid-19 related, we’d love those too. You can email these photos to us at rchs@rchistory.org.

Consider keeping a household journal of your experiences – from everyone’s point of view. You could write about how you and your family handled learning at home. We know this is all new but if you come up with a daily routine, write that routine down in the journal. Perhaps you could write about the hardest part of Social Distancing. It would be wonderful to also include the ways you stayed positive and hopeful in this tense time.

Then, if you are comfortable, please consider donating the journal (or at least a copy of it) to the Rice County Historical Society.

That way you can be a part of helping to preserve this tense time for future generations.

As we journey through this uncertain time together, if you have any history questions or would like to send us a photo or journal entry, please email us at rchs@rchistory.org.